Nick Poole Interview

Our guest in class this week was Nick Poole, director of Church Planting, from Allison Park Church in Pittsburgh. Nick was able to address church-planting from two perspectives: 1) the perspective of the church planter, and 2) from the perspective of the parent church.

Nick seems well-able to coach potential church-planters on the process of growing a church, growing leadership, helping them be successful, things/issues to think about, etc. by asking the correct questions in order to get the planters to come up with the solutions themselves. He also talked about what Allison Park and A of G looks for in church planters.

One of the things that resonated with me was when he mentioned a church being "birthed through service". It's a matter of seeing needs in a community and meeting those needs as you are able. It's about bringing hope to people and areas where there is little or no hope (and who are without Christ) by sharing and teaching the love of Christ in ways that are tangible to them. It's about sacrificing of yourself and going the extra mile in order to show them God's love. This is something that I personally feel as though I am lacking in, but that we also lack in as a church. I/we don't make a strong enough effort to impact the community through acts of service. We are willing to serve the church, but who in the community (with no connection to our church) have we served? Whose yard have we cleaned up or whose house have we painted because they were unable to do it themselves? I may not be a church planter, but I can look for these types of things to do. Alone we can do a little, but together we make a bigger impact. I want to start making a bigger impact.